


Shape Ourselves Like Clay from Someone Else's Dream

by Kalcifer



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, and i mean everyone even those who don't explicitly come up, implied past towermako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22420933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalcifer/pseuds/Kalcifer
Summary: Mako knows he can't save all the former residents of September, but he's still going to try. Even if that means having a creepy people collection in his basement for a little while.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: Secret Samol 2019





	Shape Ourselves Like Clay from Someone Else's Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haxxorbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haxxorbitch/gifts).



> I'm always up for fixing the Counterweight ending, and I really liked the idea of Mako having people to help him work through the effects of Rigor instead of treating it like a lost cause. Exploring how that might happen was a lot of fun for me, so I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Mako didn’t have time to let himself feel anything. AuDy was back, September had survived, and Rigor was here, but also Rigor was here and he needed to channel every ounce of focus into stopping it. He almost missed it when the message came through his comms.

Then he opened the video, and he was feeling so many things his robots locked up midflight, his concentration shattered. The face that appeared on his screen was gruesome, twisted the same way Natalya Greaves’ had been the one time he’d personally met her. Even so, it was unmistakably Tower.

Tower spoke, but Mako couldn’t make out words over the thrum of Rigor in his ears. He opened another channel almost on autopilot. “Hey guys,” he said. He could feel his voice straining to stay casual. “I know this is going to sound weird, but we can’t kill them.”

“Really?” asked an unfamiliar voice he assumed to be Jillian Red. “Because they don’t seem to have any problems with killing us.”

“Please,” he said. He’d be embarrassed by the way his voice cracked if he wasn’t already maxed out on emotion.”

Jillian grumbled, but the next voice that came through was Aria’s, warm and determined. “Got it.”

“This thing isn’t exactly built for nonlethal combat, but I’ll see what I can do,” Cass agreed.

Orth sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Of course I do,” Mako said, with no idea what he was doing. He just knew he had to save Tower, and anyone else who’d been enslaved by Rigor. He’d already lost September and all his friends there twice. He refused to do it again.

Not that they weren’t making it easy on him. Fighting Divinely powered enemies who were bent on killing you while holding back was hard work, especially when you were also in open space. He was tempted to let Cass go to town on the Maryland-bot to get it out of the way. Whatever he might have thought of the original Maryland, though, this woman hadn’t been the one behind the Institute. She was just as much a victim as any of the students.

It was still cathartic to imagine her getting knocked around by his friends, especially when the alternative was thinking about the ways that people he used to care about were also getting knocked around by his friends.

It was closer than he would have liked, but against all odds, they managed to win without any casualties on either end. Of course, this came with its own set of difficulties, the most pressing of which was what to do with the ones who’d been brainwashed by Rigor. He couldn’t see them accepting their loss with dignity.

It turned out that Jillian had some sort of sedative on her, for reasons Mako was too afraid to ask about, and the promise of a favor from the Rapid Evening had been enough to convince her to let him use it. He figured he could deal with the fallout from that when he wasn’t reeling from the news that his oldest friends were 1) alive and 2) brainwashed by the most evil thing in the galaxy. Besides, he personally made up like an entire wing of the Evening, so it wasn’t like they could fire him.

With support from Cass in the Apokine, he was able to sedate all of Rigor’s forces and load their unconscious bodies into the bus. He could decide what to do with them in the long term when he wasn’t burning through his oxygen supplies. He assigned the Makos to keep an eye on them in case the sedative wore off early, but judging by their identical expressions of agitation and fear, he probably didn’t need to. If anything, they were more concerned about the hostages than he was. From their perspectives, the Institute was still recent, and they hadn’t had many chances to form bonds outside it.

He caught one of the clones staring at Tower’s unconscious face and had to look away. He couldn’t afford to dwell on the past.

The trip back wasn’t actually the most awkward journey from September he’d been on, but that was because the bar was embedded in the ground. He was just as happy when they finally got back to Kesh. He let the Makos disperse as soon as they landed. It meant they’d take all the good hiding spots, but Mako still had to figure out what to do with his former classmates before he could shut himself away somewhere secluded.

In the end, it was Larry who solved it. He’d hung onto the tanks the Makos had been grown in, first because there was no discreet way to get rid of them and then because the Evening had been curious. Getting them set up was a bit of a hassle, but soon Tower and the rest were safe and unaware of everything, including Rigor’s influence.

He’d thought he’d stare at the tanks once he was done. He wanted to savor the results of his work, to remind himself that things weren’t as bad as he feared. He looked at them for about two seconds before he starting feeling uneasy. This was to save people, he reminded himself. He wasn’t the Institute.

He turned on his heel and left at a brisk but controlled pace. He had other things to do anyway. He somehow doubted this was the extent of Rigor’s mind control campaign, and he’d probably need more than 8 tanks to keep up.

He’d ask Jace if it was possible to get more. The guy knew a thing or two about not being able to save people, and once he was convinced, Jamil and Addax would fall over themselves to make sure it got done.

Everything was fine. Mako had a job to do.

* * *

Predictably, that wasn’t the end of it. He kept getting calls about captured Rigor soldiers, first from his friends and then from strangers who didn’t feel like taking care of prisoners. He felt like he was building an army of his own. He could barely bring himself to check on them, some days, the seemingly endless rows of tanks looming until they threatened to crush him.

He wasn’t so naïve as to believe he could save everyone. He’d had to kill former classmates in battles before, no matter how little he wanted to, and with all the destruction Rigor was causing, he couldn’t blame anyone who didn’t want to risk capturing its forces alive and waiting for a distant ally to come pick them up.

There was a selfish part of him that didn’t care. He had Tower and he had Maritime; several of her, even. Between Maxine on Kesh and Lazer Ted at his side, all the people he was closest to were safe. Wasn’t that good enough?

But every time he brought someone back, he saw another familiar face. Mantra who he’d swapped notes with in calculus. Caspar who kept getting kicked out of the library for being too loud. That kid whose name he never learned despite constantly running into them on campus. And even if none of that had happened, the people were still real, and they didn’t deserve to be eaten by some monster robot.

So he kept gathering them when he could, trying not to feel too creepy about it, right up until the war was won and he had to work out what to do next.

According to the reports, Rigor’s death had freed its armies from its influence and restored their free will, which was a relief. Not even he could hack everyone’s brains one at a time to kill the segments of Rigor there. Even if he could, he wouldn’t mess with their heads like that. Letting Rigor’s last fragments destroy themselves meant he wouldn’t have to.

Even so, he didn’t think suddenly waking everyone up in a room full of clones in the middle of a Rapid Evening compound was a good idea. The Makos might not let him even if he tried. They were the real experts on waking up to find that your entire existence up to then had been a lie, and while Rigor’s victims weren’t in exactly the same situation, Mako didn’t know how aware they’d been under the brainwashing, and it would suck if that was how they found out about the creepy September stuff.

After going in circles over it for an hour, he decided to call Cass. They had some counseling training, probably, and also it was nice to be in a position to casually call them without a cosmic horror looming in the background. Maybe one day there would be no lives on the line at all. That would be new and exciting.

Cass looked tired when they picked up, but the tension that had taken up residence in their shoulders over the last five years had lifted. When they saw Mako, they smiled, their expression for once open and content. “Hey,” they said. “Your timing is perfect. Everyone keeps trying to consult me about the victory celebrations, and having to take a call was the perfect excuse to point them at Euanthe. They’ll care about the decorations way more than me anyway.”

“Oh no, you have to throw a party, what a nightmare.” Mako relaxed despite the September situation. He really had missed them.

“Given the people who’ll be at that party, it is, actually.” They held a mock-serious expression for a moment before falling back into an unconcerned half-smile. “Anyway, what’s up.”

“I wanted to vent a little, honestly.” He saw their eyes narrow and hurried to explain, “Nothing major or anything! I’m just having trouble making a decision, and it’s annoying.”

Cass’ brow smoothed out. “What’s the decision?”

Mako laid out his difficulties in trying to help the other September students without traumatizing them further. As he finished his explanation, a thought occurred to him. “Hey, you have those big fancy vacation mansions you aren’t using, right? Can I borrow one of those?”

Cass hesitated. “It’s not a bad idea,” they said slowly. “We’ll have to make sure no reporters try to bother you, but given what Voice was like, being somewhere quiet might be good for them. I’ll have to run it by my siblings, though.”

“Yeah, but Sokrates is cool and won’t say no, and then the two of you will have Euanthe outvoted and their opinion won’t matter.” Mako leaned back in his chair. The change in balance sent it spinning, and he quickly faced himself back to face Cass, trying to play it off as intentional.

Cass pressed their lips together like they were fighting down a laugh. “I’m sure this will come as a shock to you, but my family didn’t exactly run on a ‘majority rules’ philosophy.” They shook their head. “I’ll talk to them, but you should probably start thinking of alternatives now.”

“Make sure you tell them that if they say no, I’ll hack into their emails and respond to everything with random emoji.”

“Uh-huh,” Cass said skeptically, and the conversation moved on to whether Cass’ siblings were as bad with technology as Cass themself and whether they’d even know what emoji were.

Eventually Mako had to hang up, too distracted trying to settle the logistics of getting to Cass’ ridiculous spare houses to focus on the conversation. He needed a way to transport a significant fraction of a planet’s population off-world. He’d earned some favor from the Evening for his work during the war, but asking to borrow a giant transport ship for an indefinite period of time for the sake of a personal project was probably a bit much.

He was trying to write the request anyway when he got a message from Cass. “They both agreed to it. We’re having the palace readied now.”

“that was fast,” Mako replied. “euanthe really agreed that easily?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. I think they noticed, since they asked what kind of a monster I thought they were.”

“…”

“They’re doing you a favor, you can be nice for five minutes. Besides, they’re not even that bad, most of the time.”

“i didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t say anything very loudly.”

“this is a text conversation”

Cass didn’t respond immediately, so Mako took it as a win. He put his phone away and went to go look at spaceships.

* * *

Getting everything ready to go turned out to be easier than he’d thought. The idea of leaving all his work behind for months made him antsy, but he gathered what he could onto drives to take with him. He made the Makos promise to send him weekly updates as well as anything he ought to take care of himself.

He’d already warned class that the ex-students didn’t have any belongings of their own, and Cass had promised to have the rooms stocked with some essentials. They’d also offered to set up shopping accounts tied to the imperial treasury, but Mako was wary of making former September residents rely on the Mesh for even something as innocuous as that.

The hardest part of the setup process was loading the tanks into the ship. Not physically; he was able to Fog a parade of Riggers to carry them for him. The thing was, doing that meant moving back and forth from one room full of his classmates kept in suspension to another for what felt like hours. More than once he had to take a break to ground himself. He wasn’t trapped in September’s terrible loops anymore. He was safe here.

Once everything was ready, he said his goodbyes to Lazer Ted and the Makos. He’d thought about inviting them, but having walking reminders of the Institute’s crimes didn’t seem like the best idea, and Ted was Ted. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t show up out of nowhere in about a month, but he’d deal with that when it happened.

He programmed the ship’s autopilot and settled in for a long week of travel. It would probably be his last chance to focus on work for a while, and he intended to take full advantage of it.

* * *

Mako knew the planet had been called Garden, but he wasn’t prepared for the name to be so accurate. He’d spent the last decade living in domes on Counterweight and then in the deserts of Kesh. The lush greenness of Apokine was surreal in comparison. He kept flying over hills and half-expecting the fields to end, but they kept going in every direction. It was ridiculous.

By the time he reached the coordinates Cass had given him, green no longer felt like a real color. There was a security perimeter set up, which seemed unnecessary, since Mako had yet to see a single person on the planet.

Cass had given him the code to get past the perimeter, but he Fogged his way in, just for fun. What was the point of seeing them in person if he couldn’t surprise and/or exasperate them a little?

He landed the ship in one of the endless empty fields and walked up to the door. The building wasn’t as large as the palace on Apostolos, but it was still solidly _Kingdom Come_ sized, and made up for its lack of stature by not looking like a place you’d go to fill out paperwork. He had no idea how he was going to live there without succumbing to the temptation to trash it at least a little.

Cass opened the door while Mako was still staring at it, which was rude. He knew he should have checked for security cameras. “Oh good, you made it,” Cass said. “Come on in.”

Mako came on in. As he did, he asked, “I know you said this would be out of the way, but there are other people on this planet, right?”

Cass shrugged. “Some. Hopefully more, if we can leverage the glory from the war into actual policy change. Demarchies are hard.” They brightened. “That’s my siblings’ problem for now, though. I’m on an ‘extended leave of absence’ to help you get set up here.”

“Wait, really? Don’t you have important politics things to do?”

“I’ve been doing politics things for the last five years, I think I’ve earned a break.” Their expression softened. “Besides, I wasn’t going to make you do this alone.”

“Oh.” Mako looked away, unsure of what to do with the sudden sincerity. His instinct was to deny needing the support, to fall back into the role of low-maintenance always-upbeat goofball, but there was no way he’d be able to keep that up once he began waking his classmates up, and having Cass around would definitely make things easier. “Thanks,” he said, very late.

Cass was polite enough not to comment on the delay. “Let me show you what we’ve got so far,” they said, and led Mako deeper into the palace.

The rooms they’d had set up were as impersonal as Mako had expected, between the short notice and the lack of information about the intended occupants, but they were remarkably comfortable. Someone had taken the time to decorate them individually, each blandly pleasant but without the mass-produced feeling of a hotel room. It must have been nice to be royalty and have people who could do your decorating for you. Mako knew Cass couldn’t have managed this themself.

“I suppose these will do,” Mako said, exaggeratedly critical in a way he probably shouldn’t have been towards someone who was lending him a palace. That was a distant thought, though, hard to connect with the Cass in front of him who had a hand in front of their mouth to hide a grin.

“I’m glad you approve,” they said. “So. How do you want to do this? Is there an order you want to let people out in, or…?”

Mako froze, good mood immediately dashed. He wasn’t entirely sure of the ethics of leaving everyone in suspension now that the war was over, but he definitely wasn’t prepared to have everyone he’d gone to school with swarming the place, many of them several times. How did he choose who to release first? He had his obvious preferences, but surely it would be selfish to act on those. Realistically, he ought to choose the most useful people and work from there.

“Whoa, hey, it’s okay,” Cass said, their voice cutting through the hum. When had Mako started hearing that again? He took a deep breath and pushed it back down.

Cass was hovering, hands at their chest like they didn’t know if they could touch him. The contact might have helped, but Mako couldn’t bring himself to ask for it. “We don’t have to deal with everything right now,” Cass was saying. “We can hang out for today and come back to it later, if that’s what you need. It will be okay.”

“Yeah,” Mako said. His voice still sounded strange to his own ears, but Cass didn’t react, so he was probably fine. “Let’s get everyone into their rooms, at least. I need to send the ship back to Kesh.”

“Okay, that works.” Cass gave him an appraising look, which Mako pretended to ignore. “And then maybe we can watch anime together or something? I’m so behind on Hieron.”

“Oh man, you’re going to hate what they did with Arrell this season.”

Cass chastised him about spoilers, and Mako laughed, and for once he was able to face the rows of suspension tanks without fear.”

* * *

For the most part, Mako had been content to shove people into rooms at random, but this one he’d put serious thought into. It was far enough from the front door to feel protected, but with massive windows to keep it from feeling too isolated. It was decorated a cheery yellow, its intended occupant’s favorite color, with no pink or grey anywhere nearby. Mako had even made sure to gather clothing he thought would fit and that he’d like. He was pretty proud of himself, frankly.

Now that it was done, though, he had no reason to keep stalling. It was time to show it off. Cass had offered to be there for this part, but the reunion felt too personal. He wouldn’t want a stranger there when he woke up.

Besides, Mako was definitely going to cry at some point in this conversation, and he didn’t need an audience for that.

He stood in front of the tank and hit the button before he could psych himself out. There was a hiss as the latches unsealed and the suspension fluid began to drain. Mako could feel his nails cutting into his palms.

Tower opened his eyes. He was gaunt, though whether that was from suspension or from Rigor, Mako couldn’t tell. His face was still twisted with fury from when they’d fought. It was hard to accept that the cruel, drawn man in front of Mako was the laidback and upbeat person he’d known.

As the door to the tank swung open, the anger melted away, replaced by confusion. Just like that, he looked like Tower again.

He stepped out of the tank and pitched forward. Mako scrambled to catch him. He couldn’t help but think how messed up it was for him to be supporting Tower’s weight instead of the other way around.

Tower blinked up at him. “Mako?” Somehow, he managed a smile.

Mako let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Rigor hadn’t broken Tower altogether.

“What happened?” Tower asked. He pulled himself to his feet, though he was still swaying a little.

“We won.” Mako didn’t want to make him think about Rigor so soon after waking up, so he stuck to generalities. “It’s over, and we’re safe.”

Tower frowned like something wasn’t quite adding up. “But… there was something I had to do. It’s important.”

The phrase sent Mako’s brain into a clamor, because now that he mentioned it, there were things Mako had to do too. What was he thinking, abandoning his duties to fly off to another planet? He was missing out on so much work right now.

He shoved those thoughts down. Shut up, that was dumb, his job right then was to take care of Tower and everyone else he’d managed to save. He could go back to work when he was done.

“It’s okay,” Mako said, trying to keep his voice calmer than he felt. “You don’t need to worry about that anymore. You should focus on getting your strength back. Do you want lunch? I made lunch for us.” He gestured in the direction of the bed, where a tray with two sandwiches rested. It wasn’t fancy or anything, but it was what he could put together quickly, and he’d made sure to use that mustard Tower liked.

“Okay, sure, lunch sounds good.” Tower made it to the bed without falling, though Mako stuck by his side just in case. He sat on the bed, legs hanging off the side, and Mako hopped up beside him and crossed his legs.

“It’s been a while,” Tower said. He took a bite of his sandwich before Mako could settle on a response. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he taste hit him, but he didn’t comment. He only asked, “Where are we, anyway?”

“A friend of mine’s house.” Mako pointed out the window. “Check out the view.”

Tower obligingly turned to look, and whistled at the sight. “There’s like no one around. Your friend must be pretty impressive.” He took another bite, then cocked his head. Mouth still full, he asked, “Are we in Aria Joie’s house?”

“What? No.” Then, because Mako had never quite outgrown the desire to impress people, he added, “But if you want to meet her, I could totally do that.”

“I… maybe some other time,” Tower said. “I don’t know if I could face her right now.”

“Oh.” Mako felt like an idiot for not realizing. He knew how the September Incident went down. He was there when Aria talked everyone into going down with the ship. “Right. Yeah.”

“But hey, thanks for the offer,” Tower said. He ducked his head, shoulders hunched.

They ate the rest of their sandwiches in silence. Mako watched Tower closely for further signs of distress, but when he didn’t see any, his mind began to wander to what he should say. There was so much that needed to be said, and he didn’t know how much of it was really necessary and how much would hurt Tower to hear.

He wasn’t having much luck untangling the two, and finally he decided to start talking and let it sort itself out as he went. It had to be better than this silence with the person he’d once found easier to talk to than anyone.

“Hey,” he said, making sure he had Tower’s attention before starting for real. “I was… I wanted to tell you how glad I am that you’re okay. I know what happened on September was awful, and I’m so sorry. We left you behind, and I thought you were dead but really you were trapped with that thing for years…” Oh good, there were the tears he was expecting. He gulped for air and forced himself to continue. “I just. I’m sorry, and I’m going to do whatever I can to help you now. Okay?” He scrubbed at his eyes. It didn’t accomplish much, since he was still crying.

“Mako,” Tower said, his own voice choked with tears. “I don’t blame you. September… It was bad, yeah. But I still remember it all, and I know that you’re the one who saved me. You’re still trying to save me. So…” He inhaled shakily. “I don’t know what to do, but I trust you. We’ll figure something out.”

Mako nodded. “Yeah. Of course. I promise.”

“Good.” Tower leaned back to lie against the bed. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Mako said again. He swallowed, feeling a little more like himself.

“It’s funny,” Tower said, words apparently aimed at the ceiling. “You’d think I’d be exhausted after all this. I am, kind of. But also, the thought of not doing anything makes me feel gross.” He laughed hollowly. “Maybe I forgot how to not be working, in there.”

Mako felt sick, not only at the thought that Rigor might still be hurting Tower but at how familiar the description was. He did his best not to show it. Tower didn’t need more things to worry about right now. “I’ll see if I can find something for you to do, if you want, but you should at least try to rest first.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Tower closed his eyes.

Mako waited, but when Tower didn’t say anything else, he turned out the light and crept out of the room. He didn’t think Tower could have fallen asleep that quickly, but he was willing to pretend.

Cass was pacing in the hallway outside. It took them a moment to notice Mako, but when they did, their expression got even more concerned. He must have looked like a real mess. “How was it?” Cass asked.

“It’s really him,” Mako said, and not even he could tell if he was more relieved or distressed. He was pretty sure his hands were shaking.

“Okay. That’s good.” Cass clasped their hands, then unclasped them again. “And how are you?”

Mako crossed his arms. “I don’t know. Does it matter? I’m not the one who was mind controlled by bass-boosted capitalism for five years.”

“That’s – of course it matters!” Cass closed their eyes, visibly trying to calm down. “For one thing, you won’t be able to help anyone if you fall apart too. Even more importantly, you’re my friend, and I’m not going to let you destroy yourself because you think you have to.” Their expression softened. “You don’t have to do this all at once. We’ve got time, now.”

Yes I do, Mako’s brain screamed. I at least owe them that much. Any time I have is at their expense, so I have to keep going.

Now that Mako was paying attention, though, that part of his brain sounded suspiciously like Rigor, and fuck anything that asshole wanted to tell him. It wasn’t his fault it was too stupid to know it was dead.

The anger made it easier to fight the anxiety of not doing anything, at least for now. “You’re right,” Mako said. “I’m gonna go play video games and not think about evil robots for a little while. If I’m not back in an hour, come get me so I can wake Maritime up.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Cass said, but they looked relieved. “But if you’re sure, I might as well join you. Do you still have that racing game?”

“Obviously,” Mako said. “And I’ve been training against the best players there are, specifically the other mes, so you don’t stand a chance.”

“We’ll see about that,” Cass said.

There was still a hum at the back of Mako’s brain, one that insisted that he was wasting his time and that he had to do things right now. As it turned out, though, the sound of Cass yelling at the TV screen drowned it out pretty well.


End file.
